(l) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for and a method of separating materials of various weight and aerodynamic characteristics. More particularly, the present invention relates to an apparatus for and a method of separating relatively light density weight and high surface area paper such as newspaper from relatively heavy paper such as magazines and corrugated cardboard.
(2) Description of the Prior Art
In view of the shortages of timber for paper manufacture and the expense of making paper from raw timber, it has been found desirable to recycle or reuse various types of papers. However, in order to recycle paper, it is necessary to separate the papers into their homogeneous types. In the paper recycling industry, it has been the practice to sort papers by hand. For example, it is necessary to hand sort paper into the following catagories: newspapers, magazines, corrugated cardboard and rubbish. Hand sorting is a time consuming and relatively expensive task. Thus, prior art methods allow sorting of paper only on a relatively small scale and at an extremely low rate of separation. It should be appreciated that the arduous and time consuming task of sorting paper by hand is the economic bottleneck which has prevented widespread use of recovered paper.
Thus, it is a principal object of the present invention to provide an apparatus for and a method of accomplishing the heretofore difficult task of sorting papers into types having varying weight and aerodynamic characteristics.